When you have a fleet of devices, multiple printers, or geographically distant office locations, a print server is a mechanism that provides adequate management and control. Print servers are high-powered appliances or software that help organizations manage files in a printing queue and facilitate the user-printer workflow.

Today, print servers can be physical or cloud-based systems that connect devices to specific network printers. Office staff and authorized remote users can submit print requests to place a bid in a queue. It eventually gets printed as a physical file.

Depending on the organization’s size — with some global enterprise networks in mind — a print server can manage more extensive networks’ print requests, organize the demand for the appropriate physical printer, and execute the queue of requests.

This article looks at what a print server is, how print servers work, printer server software, and more.

Print Server

Features: Cloud Printer Server; Image Printer Server; PDF Printer Server; Network Printer Server. Printserver allows printing from the network on port 9100. It accepts PS (postscript) data from network devices and uses Ghostscript to either convert to an image file or convert to pdf file or print to the printer.

How to install: On the client side add printer HP Color LaserJet 2800 Series PS, add port tcp/ip, and enter server ip and enter port 9100. All prints sent to this printer will be sent to Windows print server and will be converted to image file or converted to .pdf file or print to printer or upload to cloud according to option selected.

OPrint

Print from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to any printer without AirPrint Printer or apps. O'Print is an AirPrint Activator for Windows that allows the Windows PC to be AirPrint-Compatible. You do not need to install apps or buy a new AirPrint printer. ANY existing printer can be connected to Airprint from an iPad, iPhone, or iPhone touch in addition to basic printing from Safari, Mail or Photo. O'Brien lets you print to PDF and to your dropbox. There is no client limit and no shared printer limit. All iDevices and all printers can be utilized in O'Print.

How Does O'Print work? - First, O'Print gets all printers which are already installed on the Windows PC. - Next, the user will decide which printers they want to share for the appropriate iDevice by simply selecting it in the O'Print control panel. - Finally, O'Print will announce those shared printers (by Apple Bonjour) and display them on all iDevices which within the same LAN with the Windows PC. Then AirPrint from your iPad now. What is the benefit of O'Print? Compare three popular solutions for iPad / iPhone Printing - The simplest solution is to buy a new AirPrint-Compatible Printer and install it on the same LAN as your iDevices. The AirPrint also will announce itself via Apple Bonjour to the LAN. The benefit of this solution is simple and direct without a PC, but the disadvantage is that you have to buy a printer. Do you really want to change your existing printer, especially a high-level laser printer? - The second solution is an AirPrint App. Many Airprint Apps are free and allow easy printing to a general network printer. However, its disadvantage is that you must print from the AirPrint App, not the native print engine of iDevices. Therefore, you cannot print from most other apps. In addition, there may be some printer compatibility issues, such that some printers may not be supported by the AirPrint App. - The third solution is by AirPrint Activator for Windows. Like O'Print, AirPrint Activator can activate all of your printers which are installed already on the PC to be AirPrint-capable so that all of your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch devices can print directly to the shared printers in PC. Because the printing is accomplished by the native iDevice print engine, you can print from any other app. However, there is also a disadvantage in that you need to open a PC for sharing printers. This solution is more suitable for office print use.

Net2Printer RDP Client

Net2Printer RDP provides remote users connecting to a Terminal Server with reliable printing to their local printers regardless of the type of printer. Net2Printer RDP supports USB, parallel, network, even multifunction printers, and fax software, all without requiring IT staff to maintain drivers on the terminal server. Net2Printer RDP has loaded automatically when a Remote Desktop session is started and is initially configured to map the local user's default printer as the default printer in the terminal server session. Depending upon the version of Net2Printer RDP licensed on the server, additional printers can be mapped on the server, even an email printer that emails the document to the user can be mapped. File transfers from the server to the client are also possible with Net2Printer RDP Full Version.

RPM Remote Print Manager Select (32-bit)

Printing should be one click away. but there are so many problems which make printing difficult if not impossible. RPM Remote Print Manager (RPM) has grown through the years from all the print problems our customers have brought to us. We are here to help you solve your printing problems. RPM is our virtual printer product. Our customers have been using RPM for 20 years.

RPM as virtual printer: RPM does what you expect a virtual PDF printer to do, and more: convert incoming print jobs to other formats, such as PDF, TIFF and PCL; save multiple documents into a single document; print the same job to multiple printers; in one pass, send to a printer and save to disk; print the same job multiple times, using separate paper trays.

RPM as print server: RPM is implemented as a Windows print server. Its core capabilities include: managing your print workflow; sending print jobs to any Windows printer; sending print jobs to any printer on your network using core Windows print protocols, or LPR, or direct with port 9100; archive print jobs to local folders, shared folders, or anywhere via FTP; run any local application on your print job; send your print job via email as an attachment or in the message body. RPM also provides extensive data editing, manipulation and translation.

PDF Writer for Windows Server 2012

Handy and intuitive, PDF Server for Windows Server 2012 works seamlessly with most business applications. Through a familiar Print Dialog interface, you can convert existing documents to PDF. A detailed tutorial can guide you through all the functions and features at hand. Anyone looking for a solid print-to-PDF solution will find it in PDF Writer for Windows Server 2012. The software installs as a virtual PDF print driver, which means users need only click the print button in any application to create a PDF file. You can choose the page size and orientation, resolution, and whether a font should be embedded or not. It allows documents to be encrypted, and user permissions to be set. The conversion speed and quality is incredibly high, and generated PDF file is arguably the smallest in the world. With the caveat that there are similar products widely available that offer much the same functionality, we recommend PDF Writer for Windows Server 8 software product to you as a high-quality, high-performance, server-based, one-stop solution for deploying print-to-PDF creation ability across your organization. Major Features Create high-quality, press-ready, full-featured, more secured PDF files; 128-bit RC4 encryption with password and access permission control; Embed fonts; CIE color space and ICC profile integrated with PDF files; Convert web pages into PDF; Restrict viewing, printing, editing, or copying of documents to only individuals with the correct master password; Compress PDF to the extreme; Remove hidden sensitive data that would have possibly embedded into PDF; CIE, RGB, sRGB, CMYK Color Space support; Live hyperlinks; Fast Web view; Custom paper size; Page orientation; Resolution up to 4800 dpi; Scan to PDF (Print to PDF from scanner); Adobe compatible; Full-text searchable; Totally vector-based output; Multi-thread graphics rendering; Serve unlimited concurrent users/clients; Support Microsoft Point-and-Print Deployment; Fully compatible with terminal services environment.

Print Queue Manager

Print Queue Manager is a printer queue controller for local or remote printers. Simply choose a computer and the application will find all available print queues. Once found you can pause and delete jobs or you can hold an entire print queue and only pass selected jobs to the printer. This can help make enormous paper savings, ensure company document privacy and stop unwanted print jobs making it to the printer. The new job monitor allows you to see jobs appear in the queue in real-time without refreshing the list. Includes a full reporting module. PQM works better on an authenticated domain network where permissions can be applied across the network to allow access to printers.

Print2RDP

Print2RDP simplifies remote desktop printing on Microsoft Terminal Server and on Citrix servers, in cloud environments. Ideal solution for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment on Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop, VMware Horizon + ThinApp, Microsoft RemoteApp, Microsoft Hyper-V, Hyper-V VDI.

A seamless installation combined with driverless printing that is compatible with local or network printers, makes printing as easy as Install, Connect, and Print! IT administrators no longer have to worry about mounting and maintaining printer drivers or configurations.
Print2RDP removes and eliminates the need for terminal server administrators to bog themselves down attempting to support their terminal server user's printing needs.

Xlpd

Xlpd is a simple line printer daemon and print job management tool for Windows. It receives print jobs from remote servers using the LPD protocol and sends them to a local printer.

LPD is the standard printing protocol in various operating systems including UNIX, Solaris, and Linux. Since it is supported in almost every operating system, no additional remote setup is required.

Xlpd is a flexible printing solution that can be used as a simple LPD for a single PC or as a centralized printer server in companies to manage a large number of print jobs. Xlpd can work with Xmanager and Xshell to print files you are working on in real-time.

PrinterShare (64-bit)

With PrinterShare you can print documents and photos on other people's printers as easily as on the one connected to your machine. No special technical knowledge is required from both - printer owner and user. It just works. Features include Print from any application, no need to send emails with attachments, fast and secure, and easy installation.

PrinterShare (32-bit)

With PrinterShare you can print documents and photos on other people's printers as easily as on the one connected to your machine. No special technical knowledge is required from both - printer owner and user. It just works. Features includes Print from any application, no need to send emails with attachments, fast and secure and easy installation.